Soccer continues through summer

New children's league off to a good start.

New children's league off to a good start.

June 27, 2006

This is part one of a two-part series about a new grassroots neighborhood soccer league in South Bend. It has 20 teams and some 250 children, ages 5 to 15. On a sunny weekday evening, four teens seek shade under a tree. They play for Colombia, one of the teams that make up a new soccer league called "La Liga del Barrio" (The Neighborhood's League). One of the teens kneels down on the grass in LaSalle Park in South Bend, unzips a backpack and puts on a pair of red soccer cleats. As I approach them, I hear Kaká's name. "Did you see how Ronaldo passed him the ball," one of them says, in Spanish, as he kicks his foot up in the air, mimicking a back pass. They're talking about the Brazil vs. Australia match of the day before. Summer's just beginning. The World Cup is nearly half-way through. And they have soccer dreams of their own. Pablo Ros Voces Latinas Pablo Ros writes a weekly feature for The Tribune.Looking up to Kaká This summer, Gerardo Diaz hopes to improve his game enough to join the Adams High School soccer team when he starts his sophomore year there in the fall. Gerardo, 14, says he didn't try out for the team last year "because I think I'm not well-prepared." "I was afraid to join because my body doesn't compare with the others," says Gerardo, who is from Mexico. "Those guys are bigger." Gerardo says he started playing soccer when he was 6 years old. "I'm Mexican and we Mexicans like to play soccer more than any other sport," he said. Because he lived in a poor village in central Mexico, it was those who came back from the States, he says, who brought soccer balls that he and others could play with. "There weren't many soccer balls there," he says of his village. Gerardo also says playing in Mexico was different. "Over there we played on dirt ground," he says, "... but it's the same to me. Maybe it's more difficult over there because when you fall down you can hurt yourself more." While he's rooting for Mexico in the World Cup, Gerardo thinks Brazil is going to win. His favorite player: Kaká. "Because I like the way he plays and because we play the same position," he says. Time with his children Oscar Molina says he always wanted his five children to play in a soccer league but could never afford the fees. "This has given me a great opportunity," he says of La Liga, which charges $15 per child. Not only do Molina's three boys and two girls now play in a league, but also the Honduran native coaches one of their teams. Of the 20 coaches in La Liga, many are parents whose children are in the league and who say the league has given them a chance to spend more quality time with their children. "We Mexicans come here and we lock ourselves up to work," says Ramón Padilla, an employee at Don Pablo's. "Our way of thinking is that we're here to work. (Americans) spend a lot of time with their children. We don't, but it'd be better if we did." "It's very good for the kids," Padilla, who has a 13-year-old son at Jackson Intermediate Center, says of the league. "It keeps them away from drugs. It allows them to be outside. They really want to play outside after being locked up all winter." Padilla, who is from Mexico, says soccer here is different. While in Mexico it is a male-dominated sport, Padilla says, here in the States it is also popular among women. Five years ago, he recalls, "When my sons started playing soccer, they were playing in a co-ed team with girls, and the girls played better than the boys." A natural player Daisy Carrillo, 10, had never been on a soccer team before. But the fifth-grader at Navarre Intermediate Center, who plays for "Las Amigas" (The Friends), an 8- to 10-year-old girls team in La Liga, is a natural. In her team's last match, Daisy, who plays forward, scored both of her team's goals. According to her coach, Daisy is quick and moves the ball well. "Girls are good at (soccer) like boys and we need to exercise and we have to move around and get used to where we play good," she says, commenting on what it's like for a girl to play soccer. Daisy says she doesn't have plans to continue playing soccer after the league's season ends in mid-August. "Just having fun," she says. Next week: the coaches and those who made the league happenA Spanish version of this story can be seen at www.southbendtribune.com.Staff writer Pablo Ros: pros@sbtinfo.com (574) 235-6555